Group will check wipes are safe as claimed for sewer and septic systems. Toilet not a garbage can says Canadian expert Barry Orr

Rob Villee, executive director of the Plainfield Area Regional Sewer Authority in New Jersey, holds up a wipe he flushed through a test toilet in his office. Increasingly popular bathroom wipes, that are advertised as flushable, are creating clogs and backups in sewer systems.

Canada is part of an international initiative to develop an industry-wide standard on flushable wipes.

Barry Orr, a waste-water expert from London, Ont. and spokesperson for the Municipal Enforcement Sewer Use Group (MESUG), is helping a work group with the International Standards Organization (ISO) in Geneva to develop the standard.

A proposal was submitted in January and approved by a vote in the ISO in May, with support from across the globe.

Orr’s focus in the work group is to develop tests that will determine the flushability of a number of products that manufacturers claim are safe for septic and sewer systems.

Manufacturers say their wipes are safe, and damages to municipal sewer systems are rather the result of baby wipes, feminine hygiene products and others items that are not meant to be flushed.

Orr said that in 2013 the group estimated that costs to remove garbage from Canada’s approximately 3,700 waste-water systems could reach $250 million annually. That number is likely to grow for 2014, as wipes become more widely used by the general population.

He said major centres with a population of over 300,000 are spending $50,000 and up on removal of the garbage alone, forgetting other costs that can add up substantially.

If a product is labeled as flushable, Orr said it needs to dissolve upon hitting the sewers, but that many wipes do not do so. The only thing that should be flushed down the toilet as things currently stand, according to Orr, is human waste and toilet paper.

“The toilet is not a garbage can,” Orr said. “The consumers need to know that it can damage their own systems and it can damage the municipality’s systems, too.”

Costs for a plumber to fix a blocked drain in a home can range from $100-1,000 according to Orr.

Developing an ISO standard can take 2-5 years, but Orr and the rest of the work group are hoping to complete it in 2-3, to prevent the costs from continuing to rack up.

The wipes are a multi-billion dollar business.

With files from The Canadian Press

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